October 26, 2009

WHILE W OBVIOUSLY DESERVES MOST OF THE CREDIT...:

[N]eel T. Kashkari, who served both sides as a top Treasury Department official, hears something different: the quiet of the economic bomb that did not drop.

It did not drop, in his view, because the leaders of America’s rival political armies ceased firing long enough a year ago to pass the $700 billion bailout that prevented Wall Street from imploding. They included President George W. Bush and Speaker Nancy Pelosi, the liberal Representative Barney Frank of Massachusetts and the conservative Senator Judd Gregg of New Hampshire, the Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama and the Republican presidential candidate John McCain.

“As bad as it is today, it could have been so much worse,” Mr. Kashkari said in an interview. “If the financial system had collapsed,” businesses on Wall Street and Main Street alike “wouldn’t have been able to access funds to pay their employees, who then wouldn’t have money to pay their bills. It would have cascaded through our economy.”

It was “one of the worst times in our country’s history,” he said. “But it was in many ways the best time, watching all these people come together to put out the fire.”

...the only cohort from either party that deserves none is the House GOP, which voters deservedly punished Republicans for.
Posted by Orrin Judd at October 26, 2009 7:36 AM